


if you don't swim, you'll drown (but don't move, honey)

by postfixrevolution



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: (potentially) Unrequited/One-sided Love, Banter, F/M, Pining, Unresolved Sexual Tension, i literally got into this fandom like seven hours ago this is a new record
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-12
Updated: 2016-01-12
Packaged: 2018-05-13 10:10:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5703796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/postfixrevolution/pseuds/postfixrevolution
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He wants to drown in the Atlantic Ocean blue of her eyes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	if you don't swim, you'll drown (but don't move, honey)

**Author's Note:**

> That tag is not a lie I literally binge watched all the episodes available on Nick.com about 7 hours ago and then I speed wrote this and I BLAME [FULLMETALPOTTERHEAD](http://archiveofourown.org/users/fullmetalpotterhead/works) FOR _EVERYTHING_
> 
> But in all seriousness, I hope you guys enjoy this, haha. Unbeta-ed (but I used spell check), so forgive any silly mistakes that lurk and enjoy~!
> 
> .  
>    
>  _Simmer down, simmer down_  
>  _They say we're too young now to amount to anything else_  
>  _But look around_  
>  _We work too damn hard for this just to give it up now_  
>  _If you don't swim, you'll drown_  
>  _But don't move, honey_
> 
> \- **She Looks So Perfect** , 5 Seconds of Summer

The soft thuds of her feet against the stone roof are rhythmic and quick, the barely-there space between the two dull sounds as fleeting as their owner. Ladybug is a Paris constant, so incongruous to the city, but she’s as fleeting the teasing summer breeze: there with a determined glint in her Atlantic Ocean eyes in one second and gone in the next, with that brighter-than-the-sun smile that makes him fall a little more in love every time. 

Chat stands up at her arrival, a swing of his willowy arms and the lithe stretch of his legs; the black fabric of his suit moves with him, insulating against the crisp night air, but he breathes the winter cool in deeply through his nose anyway. It helps to clear his mind a little, putting words and coherency back into the place where butterfly lashes and slender fingers (too dizzying and distracting and perfect) had previously fluttered about. The soft rewinding of her belt cable is comforting, and it is to the tune of that he turns to face her, a lazy smirk on his lips and a teasing lilt to his voice.

“Of all the rooftops in Paris, could it be fate that brought my lady to mine?” he quips, taking her hand and offering a small bow. Ladybug scoffs fondly under her breath, tugging her hand out of his and poking him in the stomach, causing him to spring up with a small jump. “Hey!” he exclaims, shooting her a petulant glare. She arches a delicate eyebrow.

He gets a good look at her then, at the way the three-quarters full moon spills light on her glossy hair, silver in some places and an endless onyx in others. She’s even more beautiful with her face half painted in shadow, silvery moonlight accentuating the way her seemingly disapproving frown threatens to curl up at the corners and form that stunning smile of hers, the one that she usually just saves for perfect backwards handsprings and the post-mission euphoria where she looks at him — and only him — and steals his breath from his lungs without so much as a word. 

“A flirt twenty four-seven, are you now?” she repartees. “And here I thought a night mission might mean your elusive and nocturnal  _ maturity  _ would wake up.” 

Her lips — her  _ lips _ — curl up into a wicked grin, all sharp edges and teasing confidence. Chat stares just a little. Everything about Ladybug is alluringly self-assured, from the wide set of her stance to the thrown-back stretch of her lithe, muscled shoulders. It’s at times like this that he knows: how could he  _ not _ have fallen in love with her? She’s the center of attention in any setting, with her brilliant red suit and her reassuring, commanding presence, and she steals gazes like she’s stolen his heart: just by being the way she is. They could meet a thousand times over — fighting crime, brushing against each other in a crowded train, two seats up and one to the right in math class (because he always zones out in math class and she’s something to stare at, something he could never get tired of staring at) — and he’d end up just as head over heels as he is now. 

“You wound me,” he replies airly, pressing splayed fingers over his chest. “I'm the very  _ picture  _ of mature and serious.”

Ladybug doesn’t stifle her snort at that, the musical barrage of laughter that follows after it, spreading out euphoniously in the night time Paris air. 

“Is that so?” she teases. “And I suppose your jokes and puns are mature and serious, too?” The girl crosses her arms at him, narrows her Atlantic Ocean eyes (he wants to  _ drown _ in them) and leans forward, scrutinizing him playfully. Chat knows it’s playful because, even in her quick brushing off of his flirtations, in the way she laughs helplessly at his pick up lines and runs slender fingers through her jet black bangs, those startlingly blue eyes have never doubted him; some days, that’s more than enough for him, and he’s content to just be hopelessly in love with this whirlwind of a girl. Chat wouldn’t say today is one of those days really, not when he hasn’t been out of his house this late since summer vacation, when the moonlight makes her eyes look even bluer — if that’s possible — and the lack of sunlight and prying civilian eyes makes him feel that much more daring. 

Chat easily mirrors her stance, a small smirk and half lidded eyes. “You know you love it, my lady,” he tells her, crossing his arms and leaning forward, so close that he can feel his breath reflected back at his own face, pleasantly warm against his cheeks. Her bright eyes widen at that, blinking at him in surprise, and for a moment she’s different, softer. (More lady than Ladybug, he thinks with a mental chuckle.) She doesn’t breathe; he can feel it in the still-there bite of winter air against his skin, although he can’t fathom why because even  _ he  _ breathes in their proximity, inhales the smell of fresh paper and chocolate that surrounds her like a dizzyingly blissful fog. 

She opens her mouth to reply, and Chat prepares himself for that inevitable fall, the one that comes every time he lifts his hopes up on the curve of her smile and the curl of her lashes; somehow, though, it never comes. He blinks his emerald eyes at her, stares into the Atlantic Ocean blue of her eyes (he’s seen the Atlantic before and thought it was bright, but not as bright as her eyes — not as bright or lively or beautiful — but it’s still the closest he’s ever seen) and she stares back, a wonder in her eyes that makes him feel more solid than he’s ever felt before; the boy doesn’t breathe at this, at the reminder that he could be alive but not  _ alive _ , with his heart racing and his mind buzzing, until she looks at him (and only him).

A soft breath escapes her lips, hot against the cold tint that winter has left on his cheeks, and he feels his eyes flutter heavily, dizzily warm. It hadn’t occurred to him with his own breath reflected back at him, heavy with the scent of his mint mouthwash, but when she exhales smally and softly against the expanse of his cheeks, he catches the scent of bubblegum toothpaste and thinks: a centimeter closer and their noses could brush, two centimeters and he could capture the delicate curve of her lips, steal the sweet taste of bubblegum from her mouth with his own. He’s close enough to  _ kiss _ her, and the thought is electric, sending a sharp jolt up his spine and traitorous images to his mind; Chat licks his lips anxiously. 

“ _ Chat _ ,” she murmurs distractedly, bright eyes starting to droop, butterfly lashes fluttering entrancingly against the porcelain curve of her cheeks. He follows the motion with a mesmerized intensity. “I- uhm…”

“Y-yeah,” he breathes just as absently, too focused on the movement of her long lashes and the soft divot over her upper lip, delicate and heart shaped and begging to be traced with his own. “Me too,” he mumbles, emerald eyes sliding shut as he leans forward, just enough to brush his nose against hers. The heat of her skin is startling, but not as much as her sharp intake of breath. Ladybug gasps and it sounds like a spell broken, like glass shattering and him falling, and Chat backpedals suddenly, trips over his own feet and nearly stumbling off the edge of the building they are still perched upon. 

She is quick to catch him (she always is; it’s not that he relies on her too much, it’s that he knows her too well and knows that if there is one thing she is unfailing it, it is being there when he needs her most), searingly hot fingers branding his skin even through the thick fabric of his suit, and he tries not to think of how hot her skin is when it is bare and brushing against his own — nose and nose, so painfully,  _ painfully  _ close to lip and lip. He inhales shakily, ignoring the subtle scent of paper and chocolate that still permeates the air between them, and tries to swallow down the pounding pulse in his chest, shake away the rushing blood behind his ears. 

“Th-thanks,” he stutters lamely, staring at the ground at their feet. Hers are angled inward, shifting and squirming anxiously against the stone below them, and Chat shifts his own weight from foot to foot, too, concentrating on calming his heartbeat and not thinking of how fast hers might be. He runs agitated fingers through his messy hair, only bringing his eyes up from the ground when he hears a soft click. Ladybug has her eyes closed, inhaling deep, measured breaths as her slender fingers unclip the belt cord from around her waist, wrapping around one end expertly and twirling the gadget in lazy, slow circles. When Atlantic Ocean eyes open again they are sharp, not even a trace of the bleariness of moments ago, and they are turned to the cityscape before them.

There is a love in her eyes then that he can only dream of, one that he feels like he should be jealous of, but he can’t be, not when the way she is so irrevocably enamored with this city is part of what makes her Ladybug — what makes her perfect. She whips her compact out with the lightning-fast flick of her arm, the metallic clang of the gadget echoing into the winter night as it wraps around the nearest streetlight. 

Then, Ladybug turns her gaze on him, accompanied by that same determined glint (the one that he has fallen in love with every time he has seen it). It’s for a second only — or half a second, but it’s good as an eternity for him — but she looks only at him and his heart swells. 

“C’mon, Chat Noir; we have a city to protect,” she tells him. The girl doesn’t offer a hand, but she offers a brief smile (brighter than the sun; he knows because he’s stared at it, just to make sure) and when Ladybug leaps off the roof and into the winding streets of nighttime Paris, Chat Noir stares after her for a moment — just a moment, with the pious rapture of a schoolboy in love — before he grins, whipping out his own staff and leaping after her. 


End file.
